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Book: The Accidental Tourist
Quotes of Book: The Accidental Tourist
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  1. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    ...that was Julian for you: reckless. A dashing sailor, a speedy driver, a frequenter of single bars, he was the kind of man who would make a purchase without consulting _Consumer Reports_.
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  2. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    But his study was so dim and close, and it gave off the salty inky smell of mental fidgeting.
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  3. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    He wanted to say, Muriel, forgive me, but since my son died, sex has... turned. {As milk turns; that was how he thought of it. As milk will alter its basic nature and turn sour.} I really don't think of it anymore. I honestly don't. I can't imagine anymore what all that fuss was about. Now it seems pathetic.
    book-quote

  4. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    Disaster followed disaster... the hero stuck in there, though. Macon had long ago noticed that all adventure movies had the same moral: Perseverance pays. Just once he'd like to see a hero like himself -- not a quitter, but a man who did face facts and give up gracefully when pushing on was foolish.
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  5. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    What did Ethan care? _He_ had no trouble navigating. This was because he'd lived all his life in one house, was Macon's theory; while a person who'd been moved around a great deal never acquired a fixed point of reference but wandered forever in a fog - adrift upon the planet, helpless, praying that just by luck he might stumble across his destination.
    book-quotegeographic-dyslexia

  6. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    seven.seven was when ethan had learned to ride a bicycle.macon was visited by one of those memories that dent the skin, that strain the muscles. he felt the seat of ethan's bike pressing into his hand--the curled-under edge at the rear that you hold onto when you're trying to keep a bicycle upright. he felt the sidewalk slapping against his soles as he ran. he felt himself let go, slow to a walk, stop with his hands on his hips to call out, "you've got her now! you've got her!" and ethan rode away from him, strong and proud and straight-backed, his hair picking up the light till he passed beneath and oak tree.
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  7. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    She opened her eyes and studied him a moment. Then she slipped her hand in her pocket, come up with something and held it toward him - palming it, like a secret. "For you," she said. "For me?""I'd like you to have it."It was a snapshot stolen from her family album: Muriel as a toddler, clambering out of a wading pool. She meant, he supposed, to give him the best of her. And so she had. But the best of her was not that cild's Shirley Temple hairdo. It was her fierceness as she fought her way toward the camera with her chin set awry and her eyes bright slits of determination. He yhanked her. He said he would keep it forever.
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  8. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    You ever wonder what a Martian might think if he happened to land near an emergency room? He'd see an ambulance whizzing in and everybody running out to meet it, tearing the doors open, grabbing up the stretcher, scurrying along with it. 'Why,' he'd say, 'what a helpful planet, what kind and helpful creatures.' He'd never guess we're not always that way; that we had to, oh, put aside our natural selves to do it. 'What a helpful race of beings,' a Martian would say. Don't you think so?
    book-quote

  9. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    Ever consider what pets must think of us? I mean, here we come back from a grocery store with the most amazing haul - chicken, pork, half a cow. They must think we're the greatest hunters on earth!
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  10. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    There is no sound more peaceful than rain on the roof, if you're safe asleep in someone else's house.
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  11. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    It is not how much you love someone, but who you are when you are with him.
    book-quoteself-discovery

  12. Anne Tyler _ The Accidental Tourist

    I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them."
    book-quotelove
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